Very rainy day to the last day of the year. Too wet for a round of tennis, so we just lounged on the couch pretty much all day, reading and watching some telly, and reflecting on the past 12 months.
With borders finally fully open, we had a fantastic year of travels. Thankful that I was able to work remotely, so we could have spent as much time abroad as we did – in Bali, New York, and Phuket.
Besides the travels abroad, we also had plenty of quieter but no less fun moments back home not pictured above. Long languid evenings catching up with old friends and family, over wine and cocktails, that make me immensely grateful for the friendships through the years. Especially as we look towards up rooting ourselves again next year.
Here’s to a 2023 well spent. And here’s to 2024, to good health and new adventures.
Two days after we’d happily disembarked the Emperor Echo, post a week of relaxing diving in perfect conditions, a strong storm hit the boat in its moorings at Fury Shoals. One of its moorings snapped, and the boat was swung violently into the reef, damaging its hull. Thankfully, everyone managed to safely evacuate and are back on land. The Emperor Echo though, has drifted off and likely sunk in another nearby reef, the Stairway to Heaven, which we had also dove.
Life is so unpredictable. I can scarcely picture the scene that dark and stormy night. The terror everyone must have felt. But such are the odds when we go to sea, and now the Emperor Echo might become another one of the wrecks in the Red Sea for divers to explore.
I’m grateful everyone on that is safe, and even more thankful that ours was such an idyll in comparison. And the beautiful thing about going to the Red Sea in October is the perfect clime. Days in the high 20s C, warm in the sun, but always with a cooling breeze, and the air is so dry that within a couple of hours, our swimmers that we tie on the banisters in between dives are dry already.
We had three dive guides on the trip, Tifa, Reda, and Elnouby. At every site, one would give us an extensive dive briefing, then give us the option to go in on our own without a guide. Previously, Jeff and I always chose the option of a guide, since they knew the area and can point out the cool stuff, and since we didn’t have very high confidence of our own navigational skills lol. But, buoyed by their trust in our abilities and their encouragement to try going on our own so we could take our time with photos and videos without others crowding, we mostly went ourselves after the first couple dives. It helped that the visibility in the Red Sea is so clear that we could easily spot the bubbles and the boat from over 20m away!
Before we got into the water for the Elphinstone Reef, Tifa made us watch a video on what to do in an Oceanic Whitetip encounter. To be honest, I hadn’t known before how that how these sharks like to keep in the shallows, and how aggressive they can be. It made me super nervous jumping into the water at Elphinstone, especially after a couple of the divers in our group elected to skip that dive, on account of attacks in recent months. The crew spotted one in the shallows as we moored, so Tifa gave us the option to spend a portion of the dive in the blue waters at around 8m, to look out for more sightings. Jeff and I elected to stick as close to the reef as possible, haha, though no one spotted the shark again that dive.
On our first dive on the second day at Gotta Soraya though, towards the end of the dive, as Jeff floated out from the wall to video the glinting school of glass fish “raining” down the blue, I saw the shadow of a large shark come in from afar. I tried for a few seconds to get Jeff’s attention, then decided to get in some quick snaps first. It came in close from below him, then swooped upwards before swimming away. I managed a snap as it turned away, and only then noticed the rounded white tip of its dorsal fin. The oceanic white tip!
We were in a loose group of 6 divers, including Tifa, who motioned us to close up together in a group, and as we did so, we saw the shark come back in for another look. Then another shark; there were two. Tifa bade us keep at 8m for our safety stop, and deployed his SMB (surface marker buoy) for the zodiac to come pick us up. The German couple in our group had the least air remaining in their tanks, so when the zodiac came, he had them ascend in a pair first. They quickly removed their weight belts and BCD before the driver hauled them into the boat, then Tifa motioned for Amy and myself to go up. With the sharks circling in shallow water, we had to be economical with our movements. Jeff said later that the sharks came in for another swim by while he and Tifa waited for their turn to ascend. Haha, it was definitely one of my most exciting shark encounters (the other being the tiger shark swim by when we paddled Monkey Mia in Western Australia earlier this year)!
It turned out to be our only shark encounter of the trip, haha. I was a bit disappointed that we didn’t spot any reef sharks, but later on in the trip, on Day 5, we zodiac-ed to Sataya North reef to swim with a huge pod of a couple hundred dolphins. There were a lot of other dive boats and day trippers out, but at least it didn’t feel crowded or hectic in the water like when we did the whale shark swim, with people trying to frantically keep up with the whale sharks. In the lagoon in Sataya, the dolphins were spread out in smaller pods of a few dozen, and they placidly swam this way and that, so everyone mostly just leisurely floated around, waiting for another pod to swim by. It was a fun 30 minute surface interval.
We also had some really fun swim throughs on quite a number of the dives. At St. Johns Cave, the dive briefing was essentially, explore any swim through as they all interconnect, but don’t squeeze into any tight spots. It was an easy shallow dive, and we were allotted a luxurious 75 minutes. Jeff and I went on our own, and made use of every single minute. It was super fun to just wind our way around the caverns, admiring the beautiful shimmering shafts of light from above. It was like the cenotes diving in Mexico, but with colorful corals and fish time we swam out to the outer reef. So much fun!
Dive briefing for Malahi – essentially, any route is open
The South and St John itinerary of the Red Sea isn’t known for wrecks like up in the North, but we did have one at Small Abu Golawa. There were other divers at the wreck when we first descended, so we took some snaps then went into the reef to explore before going back at the end of our dive where we had the entire area to ourselves.
Life up on the boat was relaxing. As with all liveaboards, we were well fed, with generous variety and portions at every meal, including dessert. If we weren’t sailing at night, everyone would congregate on the second floor deck for smokes (the Germans) and games and stories about other diving trips. It was a super fun and chill group of mostly Germans, Brits, Americans, and us.
Thanks for the memories again, Emperor Echo!
Our dive itinerary:
Abu Dabad III (Day 1)
Elphinstone Reef (Day 1)
Paradise St John (Day 2)
St John’s Cave (Day 2) – my favorite dive for the fun swim throughs
St John Um Aruk (Day 2)
Small Gotta (Day 3)
Dangerous Reef (Day 3)
Big Gotta (Day 3)
Paradise Reef (Day 4) – I skipped this night dive
Sataya South (Day 5)
Malahi Playround (Day 5)
Shaab Maksour (Day 5)
Shaab Claudia (Day 5 and 6) – we did the night dive here, but the sunrise dive was brilliant, as we really enjoyed the swim throughs
ptanphoto 
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